


Clarity

by LadyAscalon



Series: Bridging the Distance [1]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda, Historical RPF
Genre: Canon Era, First Kiss, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Period-Typical Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:35:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26055820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyAscalon/pseuds/LadyAscalon
Summary: “You are confused,” Laurens says. The pulse in Hamilton’s wrist throbs against the pads of his fingers. He lets go.“I am not.”
Relationships: Alexander Hamilton/John Laurens
Series: Bridging the Distance [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1899109
Comments: 13
Kudos: 113





	Clarity

It is late winter when Congress grants Laurens his wish. Hamilton is in the command tent when Washington reads the letter aloud. Three thousand black recruits, his to wrench from the bonds of slavery for their chance to fight for, and inherit, a new nation. He does an admirable job of keeping his composure in Washington’s presence, responds with a reserved, “I am most gratified at this turn of events, Your Excellency. I cannot state strongly enough how much I believe in this cause.”

Outside the tent and a respectable distance away, Laurens allows himself to dissolve into hysterical giggling and Hamilton latches on, absurdly aggressive hugs, sloppy cheek kisses, and—terrifyingly—a brief attempt to pick him up and swing him around like an oversized child.

“I can’t believe it!” It feels as though his face will crack in two with the force of his smile, and Hamilton is beaming back at him.

“You know what this calls for,” he says.

Laurens will, to the end of his days, protest that all alcohol-related ills in his life are the responsibility of one Marquis de Lafayette. Before signing on as a volunteer aide-de-camp to General Washington, Laurens had been as responsible a drinker as a young man might be. A glass of wine at dinner. A pint at the pub. Then the Marquis blew in, boasting an impressive stash of pure liquor and a tolerance that could put down a Titan, and Laurens’s evenings were never the same. Now, in honor of those traditions set in place by Lafayette across the sea, they celebrate. Naturally, this has the same dire consequences as it did when Lafayette was around to partake. 

Laurens's state of being the next morning when he arrives in Washington’s tent is pitiful to say the least. Hamilton, unbelievably, is at his desk scribbling away, his complexion a little green around the edges but his focus as sharp as ever. The man is a force unto himself.

“Lieutenant Colonel Laurens?” Laurens snaps to attention at Washington’s call, and follows a beckoning hand to his desk. 

“Your Excellency.”

“A supply convoy bound for Charleston is leaving camp at the end of the week. Friday. You will join them.”

“So soon, sir?”

“Fortune clearly smiles on you, son. You will be able to start your project sooner than anticipated.”

“I am grateful, Sir, of course. But what of my work? I am not confident that I can complete all of my assignments in such a short time.”

“I will make reassignments as necessary. Congratulations again, Lieutenant Colonel.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

“Dismissed.”

Laurens salutes and turns on his heel, walking to the desk he shares with Hamilton fueled by purely nervous energy.

Hamilton looks up when Laurens jitters his way into the chair opposite.

“What did he say?” he asks in a low voice.

“I am to leave on Friday,” Laurens tells him, picking up the sheaf of paper and tapping it on the desk, just for something to do with his hands. 

“Friday?!” Washington, Tilghman and Meade look up from their work to stare at him. Hamilton shoots them a meek smile. “Apologies.” And then he looks back at Laurens. “Friday?” he repeats.

“That is what he said. There is a supply convoy scheduled to depart, and I am to go with them.”

“But that’s only four days away.”

“I know.”

“That’s barely any time at all.” Hamilton has stopped writing now, and the nib of his quill is getting closer and closer to his mouth, like he’s about to start absently chewing. 

Laurens reaches over and grabs his wrist. “Ink is scarce enough without you eating it.”

“What? Oh.” Hamilton stares dumbly at Laurens hand. “Yes.” He looks back up at him. “Four days?”

“Are you broken, Hamilton? Is Lafayette’s whiskey still at work?” Laurens jokes, although he aches to see Hamilton already apprehensive at his departure.

“I am only surprised,” Hamilton says after a moment taken to recover his wits. “We will have to make the most of these last few days before you are dragged into the southern swamps.”

“You are simply jealous of the nicer weather I will be enjoying.”

“I fully expect you to leave all your blankets in my care.”

“Of course.”

“Gentlemen…” Laurens peers over his shoulder to see Washington giving them a significant look. He feels like a child caught chattering during a lesson. Hamilton is a bit red in the face, himself.

“Yes, Sir. Sorry, Sir,” they chorus. And then, with one final shared glance, they get to work.

It has been dark for hours by the time they return to their tent. Laurens’s feet are dragging after an exhausting day of running around camp, taking inventory, hunting down the supplies Washington wishes him to add to the South Carolinian convoy. Hamilton, in a turn-up for the books, for once did not have to be extracted from the command tent by force. When Laurens had finally dropped his quill for the night and pulled himself out of his chair, Hamilton quickly finished dotting his ‘i’s and crossing his ’t’s and stood up to join him.

“Are you feeling quite well, Hamilton?” Tilghman asked, giving voice to the question on everyone's minds. A night when Hamilton was not the one to blow out the candles was a rare one, indeed.

“Very well, Tilghman. Have a pleasant evening.”

Laurens had joined Tilghman and Meade in gaping as Hamilton then turned without another word and briskly left the tent. 

“ _Is_ he well?” Meade asked Laurens.

“I really don’t know,” Laurens had replied, bemused.

He found Hamilton waiting for him just outside. They set off apace toward their tent. 

“That was quite the exit,” Laurens remarked as they skirted the remains of someone’s cooking fire.

“Was it?”

“I have scarcely known you to leave work unfinished.”

“It can wait until tomorrow. You’re tired.”

Laurens shot him a look. “My exhaustion does not preclude you working. It certainly never has before.”

“Before, I did not have less than a week left to spend with you.” Laurens turned his head fully to look at Hamilton then, but his friend would not meet his eye.

Now, finally sheltered from the biting March wind by the fabric of their tent, Laurens stares blankly at his cot, fighting the urge to drop onto it and directly into unconsciousness. If Hamilton left work early to be with him, he figures he owes him at least a few minutes of companionship.

But first he unties his cravat. Everything else stays on for the night—coat, boots, northern winter is nothing to toy with—but the damn cravat is suffocating.

“What is on your mind?” he asks, twisting the fabric through itself and tossing it onto the desk between their cots. Requesting Hamilton’s thoughts is a tried-and-truth method of ensuring that he has to do little conversational work himself.

“Laurens?”

“Ye—” he turns around only to find Hamilton just inches away, a pensive look on his face. Eyes wide, lip worried by his teeth. “Good lord, Hamilton! You mustn’t sneak up on a man like that.”

“Sorry.” But he’s obviously not. He reaches up and takes hold of Laurens’s lapels, still wearing that strange expression. He watches his thumbs as they stroke over the fabric, then meets Laurens’s eyes again. “I am going to miss you terribly, you know.”

“And I, you, of course.” 

Hamilton smiles at him crookedly. “I’ll write you every day.”

“You had better not. Save some paper for the rest of the camp, Alexander. Washington’s directives are more critical than my amusements.”

Hamilton doesn’t look convinced. With anyone else, Laurens would assume they were exaggerating. With Hamilton, anything is possible, and with his eyes still locked on Laurens’s face, the intensity feels personal and even more sincere.

Is he closer than he was a moment ago?

“John…” Laurens can’t help raising his eyebrows at this. Hamilton is usually hesitant to use his Christian name, which, when questioned, he has explained away as being a sign of respect. Peculiarly, this respect seems particular to Laurens, as Hamilton has no trouble whatsoever cheerfully enunciating Lafayette’s full seventeen-syllable name at the very top of his lungs whenever the opportunity presents itself.

“Alexander?” he replies, in turn.

“May I tell you something shocking?” Hamilton asks, softly. He’s so close now that Laurens feels odd with his hands hanging limply at his sides as they are. He brings his hands up to rest on Hamilton's upper arms, feeling the winter-roughened fabric of Hamilton's coat catch on the calluses the war has left on his formerly soft gentleman's fingers.

“You tell me very little that isn’t shocking,” he points out with a small smile, trying to ease the mood. It’s a weak joke and, in point of fact, it's mostly true, but Hamilton is radiating an intense energy that feels like it may grow to swallow them both, and Laurens feels an almost instinctual compulsion--borne of experience with being on both sides of an argument with him--to try and cut it. 

“I mean it,” Hamilton insists.

Laurens softens. “You know you may tell me anything.”

“Yes...” Hamilton’s hands shift from Laurens lapels to his collar, now, and his eyes follow, watching his fingers brushing carefully against fabric. He’s silent for a while longer. Laurens starts to worry again. What manner of shocking thing could make Alexander Hamilton, of all people, hesitant to speak?

“Alexander?” he asks, again.

“Perhaps it is better to show you,” Hamilton says, more to himself than Laurens, and Laurens hasn’t a moment to react before Hamilton has settled it with himself and is moving. 

His fingers are slipping up to cup Laurens’s jaw.

His body is shifting close, just touching.

His head is tilting.

And his lips…

John falls into into it for a second, just a second. Maybe not even a second. A fraction of one. Alexander’s lips brush his and for a fraction of a second John’s mind is overwhelmed by disbelief and point-blank panic and hideous, instinctual exhilaration, and he leans into it. 

A kiss.

Alexander is warm. His lips are chapped. His mouth is slightly open, his moist breath tangles with John’s.

And after a fraction of a second John freezes, his mind catches up. And after a fraction more he gains control of his defenses and uncurls his hands from their clutch on Alexander’s arms, places them on his chest, and pushes him gently back.

“Hamilton,” he says. Enforce distance.

“John.” But that distance is still measured in inches. Hamilton’s eyes are still on his face, pupils large and dark. His fingers are still pressed at the hinge of Laurens’s jaw, touching his throat.

Laurens grabs his wrists, as carefully as possible, pulls his hands away. “You are confused,” he says. Hamilton’s pulse throbs against the pads of his fingers. He lets go.

“I am not.” Hamilton’s voice is low and serious.

“You are.” Laurens insists. He takes a step away, tries to turn his back again, but Hamilton’s got a hand fisted in his coat and he can’t.

“I am _not_.”

“It’s okay.”

“John—”

“You are confused, Hamilton.” Laurens says again, and he knows it sounds like pleading, even if he believes in the truth of it. He’s not strong enough for an argument. He’s exhausted. His heart is throwing itself against his chest. He feels lightheaded. He’s sick. He needs to sit down in the cold winter air and let nature stifle his perversity.

“I love you.” Hamilton says. And Laurens has heard it from him before. Has said it to him before. But not like this. Never like this. And he’d thought it wasn’t possible to feel worse. The world reels.

Laurens tries to gather himself. It’s his responsibility. “I am sure you do,” he allows, breathing through it. “As a brother.”

“No.”

“Yes. War is unnatural. The way we live—it’s unnatural for men to be kept this long in their own company. It is only natural that your feelings and our circumstances might become muddled in your head.” He swallows back a rush of nausea.

“I am not stupid.” Hamilton’s tone is bullish, his eyes narrowed now, detecting an insult.

“I'm not saying that you are.”

“I know my heart.”

“You will have more clarity when I’m gone.” Mistake. Hamilton is pressed up against him again in a heartbeat, hands gripping his lapels once more, dragging him down.

“When you’re gone, I’ll be in misery.” He fends off Laurens’s attempt to remove his hands by twisting and grabbing him by the wrists in a strange reflection of their position only minutes ago. Laurens can feel his sickly blood throbbing under Hamilton’s fingertips. He says nothing, only tries to breathe, only tries to fill his lungs with winter air warmed by Hamilton’s presence, by his life. Every breath only makes him more disgusted with himself.

After a few moments of riding his wave of self-righteousness, Hamilton takes notice. “My dear, you’re pale.” He releases Laurens’s wrists in favor of pressing one hand against his forehead, the other against his shoulder to hold him up, suddenly solicitous.

“I do not feel well,” Laurens admits, as though it isn’t obvious.

“Sit.” 

He’d have to be a fool to be told twice. He allows Hamilton to guide him to his cot, and drops down on it, elbows on his knees, face in his hands. Breathe, Laurens.

“I have whiskey. Water?”

“Whiskey.” Hamilton’s flask flashes in front of his eyes. He takes it with shaking hands, takes a pull and winces at the burn. Winces again when his mind supplies a history of moments, Hamilton’s lips just there.

Hamilton allows him a moment of respite before his irrepressible urge to speak overcomes him once more.

“It was not my intention to make you swoon,” he says. Laurens glances up at him, uninterested in being amused. Hamilton is kneeling on the tent floor at his feet, sitting back on his haunches, hands in fists on his thighs. He catches the look and sighs. “I apologize.”

“You have nothing to apologize for.”

“John—”

“You have _nothing_ to apologize for,” Laurens repeats. Now that he’s sitting and he no longer feels like he might go over backwards, he knows he must muster the strength to put a stop to this. “You may insist to the contrary as much as you like, but I do believe you are suffering from nothing more than the confusion of a long campaign where women are few and far-between—no, Hamilton, do not interrupt me,” he says sternly, as Hamilton’s mouth opens indignantly. “I bear you no ill will. I won’t tell anyone what happened. You are safe. But you must stop this, please.”

Hamilton considers him. “And what about you?”

“What about me?”

“You have said an awful lot about me, and my confusion. I wonder why a gesture you believe to be a sign of _confusion_ ,” no shortage of sarcasm there, “would put you on the edge of death.”

There is no question of admitting to his own disease. It is daily approaching the limits of his capacity of live with himself, knowing his soul to be stained as it is. To contribute to the confusion and corruption of a man as good, as decent, as honorable as Alexander Hamilton would be a sin he truly could not bear.

And so he lies.

“I was taken aback,” he says.

“Taken aback.” Hamilton repeats.

“You are my closest friend. I know you to be an honorable man. To be approached that way… I was shocked. You suggested yourself that I would be.”

Hamilton tips his head. “You are disgusted with me.”

“I was overwhelmed. But I am not disgusted. I know that it does not reflect your true heart.”

Hamilton looks like he’s going to protest again, but something stops him and he bites down on it. Perhaps he has some sympathy for Laurens’s pathetic figure, after all. Perhaps, even, he recognizes the gift he is being given. Few men would rebuff an apparent sodomite’s advances with gentle words and a promise of confidence.

“You will not hold it against me?” he asks, instead.

“I promise.”

His mouth tips into a cracked smile. “I am truly blessed to have such a friend.”

“So you know how I feel every day.”

The air in the tent is still tense, but it is no longer suffocating.

“We have four days before you leave,” Hamilton says, suddenly, standing up. “We must make the most of them.”

Laurens, recognizing the gesture for what it is, smiles weakly and plays along. “We cannot drink non-stop until Friday, Hamilton. I fear I am still hungover from last night. And there is work to be done.”

“I have done some of my finest work with a pint to hand.”

“I have seen your ‘finest work’ and I think the General would prefer you save it for your personal correspondence.”

“So I will save it for you. Mark me, Laurens, even in South Carolina you will not be free of my opinions.”

“God forbid it be otherwise.”

When he sleeps that night, he dreams of giving in. Hamilton’s fingers against his jaw, threaded in his hair. Hamilton’s skin hot under his hands. Hamilton’s mouth soft and open and wet against his. Hamilton saying…

When he leaves at the end of the week, Hamilton catches him at the flap of their tent and hugs him as if by pressure alone they could become one, inseparable being.

“I’ll write you every day,” he promises again, face pressed to Laurens’s neck. “I swear it. I love you.”

And Laurens allows his heart one final parting gift. 

“I know,” he says. “I love you, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> The setting here is the product of semi-cursory internet research, please make allowances for some historical inaccuracy in events and turns of speech. 
> 
> These are envisioned as Miranda's characters, but the circumstances in the arc of this story and its companion hew more closely to historical fact than they do to the musical's timeline.


End file.
